Black Friday in Brooklyn: Wolves vs. Nets GDT

[thedoper]

Alot of people seem to be ripping on wiggs after the last game and calling him to be moved to the bench. If he doesn't drop big points, hes played bad or he drops big points, he didn't play defense.

I also think people are underestimating the impact kat has been having since the butler trade. Kat has been getting into more foul trouble, but i think that's him being active and trying to make the right play rather than simply hunting for rebounds and block shots.

https://stats.nba.com/game/0021800265/advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=1

Surprisingly good numbers on both sides of the ball by Wig in the Brooklyn game an stats.nba.com...not what I would have thought in watching it. It's especially surprising to me that his offensive rating is so much better than Rose's...Rose looked brilliant to me while Wig seemed disinterested. So much for stats, I guess.
I agree that Wig seems much more focused and effective on defense this year. I know most here don't share my view on this, and of course neither does The Smartest Coach in the Room, but I find Wig so much more effective on defense when he is matched up against a typically sized SG rather than a typically sized SF. He's quick and athletic enough to stay with almost all SGs, and the 3 or 4 inch height advantage he often enjoys (the average NBA SG height is only 6'4.2") really seems to make a difference. Speaking from personal experience, I always struggled when matched up with defenders who were 4 inches taller than me.

I agree completely on Wiggins D. He unfortunately would have to play man D on the bigger guy with Butler when his biggest asset is his speed for his size. Roco seems to be way more of a compliment and having him defending 2s has been a huge upgrade to our system as a whole.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

You know what is really dusgusting? Wiggys numbers on pull up 2's. Hes shooting 26%. 26%! That alone is killing his efficiency numbers. Hes got good percentages from every where else: pull up 3's, catch and shoot 3's, post ups, attacks at the rim, even fts.

It frustrates me to no end that the coaching staff allows him to take these dumb shots It frustrates me to no end that he doesn't figure this out for himself either.

[Q12543 [enjin:6621299]]

My much too late game review:

Save for a couple of sections in the crowd, the place was half filled. Not sure if you could tell on TV. Crowd had great enthusiasm for hometown boy Taj Gibson and definitely Derrick Rose also. Rose has become such a major human interest story in the NBA, fans don't even care if he's in Minnesota doing it. This may seem like a diss to Wolves fans, but honestly, fans are just happy he's doing well no matter where it is. Rose was and I guess still is that alternative to James and Durant to a lesser extent that fans loved at his peak. Rose played very well today and while we wish it was Jones doing this or some other young guy, Rose is pretty much filling a major void that we've been complaining about for a long time.

as for Gorgui: He didn't play well. He tried. It wasn't effort related, but I lay his struggles on two people: Towns and Thibodeau. If KAT could play without fouling, Gorgui wouldn't play so much. Towns gave us a big enough boost that he wasn't an overall negative today, and BK lost simply because they failed to keep applying pressure on Towns and attack the basket at will. Down 4, DInwiddie tried to be a hero and shoot a 3 over Towns, missed and that essentially did it for them. Towns is not gonna get the benefit of the doubt anytime soon with refs and he needs to realize that before he finds it pointless to try on defense. Thibs should have realized it's a 12pm game and the team was lacking in energy. He essentially ran plays as if KAT was still out there with Dieng reaping the benefits. Plan A might have been to give Saric an extended look especially with Jarrett Allen in foul trouble but Saric wasn't great, so use Okogie. The team won, so that's important, but today highlighted how stubborn Thibs can be. Okogie and Tolliver at least tried to keep their spirits up on the bench.


As for Wiggins, today's MVP was Covington simply because it felt like Wiggins was mimicking Covington defensively. Brooklyn had a balanced attack today offensively, but Wiggins stopped looking for his shot and just focused on trying on defense and made it tough for guys to get shots off from outside. He was +17 today. Even on a day where he was 9/2/2, he didn't hurt the team, and that's more than I can say for some games where he scores 20/3/2, yet he's a minus. Defense is contagious and RoCo has the virus.


And as I mentioned earlier, side note: Maven who used to wrestle, works for the Nets in promotions apparently. That was a kinda cool surprise. You never know who you run into at games I guess. All in all, Wolves got the W, I'll do this again in February when the Wolves go to MSG.

Thanks for the write up Wolf, glad you were able to catch a W. Covington has been a transformative presence defensively. It's amazing how one guy can have this much of an impact, but so far that's what is happening.

As for Rose, it is pretty sad that he's the guy we're having to rely so much on to create shots and score. Teague has not played how I thought he would since Butler left and Thibs still doesn't seem to know how to get KAT more shots. And Wiggins is his usual poor-shot-selection, fumbly fingers self. But I will absolutely say I was dead wrong about Rose heading into the season. He's been a net positive so far. It's just unfortunate he has to carry such a heavy load.